Escapism is good for you, and Hollow Hand has it in spades

The unifying feel across the album is one of nostalgia - the kind of sepia-toned nostalgia for an era that wasn’t your own. Of course, Max Kinghorn-Mills (the man behind the project) really has no memory of the '60s sounds that he conjures up so wonderfully aside from this deep-rooted nostalgic longing for the era which they represent. But conjure them he does.

You have the playfully McCartney-esque “Ancestral Lands”, which sounds so woolly you can practically smell the sheep in the field. This is followed by the chiming, heavenly Byrds sounds of “One Good Turn” - its tight rhythm and choppy chords could have been dropped out of heaven by Gene Clark himself.

The playful “Blackberry Wine” is sexy like the Kinks are sexy. It’s fun, light-hearted and sugar-sweet. “A World Outside” is a bit steadier, a bit more contemplative – and it give the record a suitably fitting pivot-point before the glorious “Milestone”. It makes sense that they put this out as a taster single before the record dropped, because it’s got everything that makes this record great crammed tightly into it: it chimes, it rings, it chugs... Everything you ever thought you needed from '60s pop, and a little bit more.

The record is, one could argue, rather low-risk and straightforward. You could, if you wanted to, argue that the execution of the record doesn’t match the clear ambition. Sure, the sounds here are over fifty years old and have been done before. But, and this is a but with a capital B, there’s a reason why people watch Wes Anderson movies and fetishize bygone eras. It’s comfort, plain and simple.

The world is fucked, societies are ruined on a daily basis, and people just want to relax. Star Chamber, much like the superb nostalgia-trips released earlier in the year by The Lemon Twigs, Arctic Monkeys, Cut Worms (and many, many more) are escape routes out of this world. They’re warm blankets. They’re well-trodden paths. They are there to help us cope with the difficulties of real life, and transport us to a time that isn’t our own, so we don’t have to worry about it.

Escapism is good for you, and Star Chamber has it in spades.